Should I shave my beard?

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yellow8yellowM

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I am growing a beard for the first time. It looks nice and full (6.5 weeks long) and my face is good for a beard (in all humility). My wife does not like it though. I would like to grow it longer to see what it looks like when it is complete (maybe 3-4 months total, with some trimming throughout).

Do you think it is unreasonable for me to keep it this long even if my wife really doesn’t like it?
 
That depends on the relationship that you have with your wife. Do you guys take the liberty of doing things with your appearance that you like even if the other one doesn’t? Or do you guys always take the other person’s opinion into consideration and try to be as physically pleasing to them as possible? Either approach works, as long as you guys are on the same page.

My fiance and I are somewhere in the middle. I frequently play with my hair cut and color, wear clothes that I love that he doesn’t (really, what kind of man hates skirts?!) and wear jewelry that he isn’t a huge fan of. But not all the time. After I’ve had my fun with purple hair or peasant skirts for a few weeks I go back to a more natural look and jeans. Then I get bored and pull out some fun jewelry. Then I cut my hair above the shoulders like he likes, and then I grow it out like I like. But for special occasions and important events I always try to look my best to him. For example, if its our anniversary or he has a company dinner, the blue hair has to go. (Ok, I’ve only had blue hair twice, and it was a mistake both times.) He does the same though. He’ll grow his hair out like I like, then cut it short the way he wants it. He’ll wear his hobo clothes that he loves, but then go through a phase of dressing up for me. His beard situation changes regularly because I love him with a beard and clean-shaven, and I can’t decide which is ultimately better.
 
Women do not have beards. Children do not have beards. Men have beards. When a man shaves his beard, it must in logic be to look more like either a woman or a child. The choice is over to you, or you could look like a man instead.🙂
 
Tingo said:
Women do not have beards. Children do not have beards. Men have beards. When a man shaves his beard, it must in logic be to look more like either a woman or a child. The choice is over to you, or you could look like a man instead.🙂
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I think men with beards are very attractive. Especially ginger beards. 😉 (My husband has a ginger beard. lol)
 
Unless you are in a ZZ Top cover band there is no reason to have a beard like that.
 
The most important lesson I ever learned about marriage: “it isn’t all about me”.

Listen to your wife, and consider her feelings.
 
I hate beards. They are scratchy. If you want your wife to keep on kissing you, get rid of it.
 
Tingo said:
Women do not have beards. Children do not have beards. Men have beards. When a man shaves his beard, it must in logic be to look more like either a woman or a child. The choice is over to you, or you could look like a man instead.🙂
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Or maybe just look like a man without a beard? :rolleyes: How utterly shallow to define “manliness” as having a beard.

Jala
 
yellow8yellowM said:
I am growing a beard for the first time. It looks nice and full (6.5 weeks long) and my face is good for a beard (in all humility). My wife does not like it though. I would like to grow it longer to see what it looks like when it is complete (maybe 3-4 months total, with some trimming throughout).

Do you think it is unreasonable for me to keep it this long even if my wife really doesn’t like it?
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It depends on how much she dislikes the beard. If she merely thinks you look better without it, then you might be able to negotiate to keep it. However, if she insists that she can’t kiss you while you keep ‘that awful, scratchy beard’, then you should probably get rid of it.

As far as my husband goes, beards are fine, and clean shaven is fine. But, the stubble phase is horrible – it’s like sandpaper rubbing against my delicate skin. Ouch!
 
OraLabora said:
The most important lesson I ever learned about marriage: “it isn’t all about me”.

Listen to your wife, and consider her feelings.
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Agreed. As a wife who wisher her husband would shave, we have both had to consider each other’s feelings. Right now he is a youth minister and looks like one of the youth without his facial hair, so I understand why he keeps it and don’t make a big deal of it. But once he doesn’t “need” it anymore, I hope that he will consider shaving it for me. If your wife is adamant, then shave. If you express your desires and she is able to get over herself, then thank her for her consideration to your feelings.
 
My reasoning for keeping the beard for a few more months is that she has had her say for about 10 years. I think 4 out of 120 months where I get to wear the beard is reasonable. I do intend to cut it, probably for Easter. Then I will likely go clean shaven for another 10 years.
 
yellow8yellowM said:
My reasoning for keeping the beard for a few more months is that she has had her say for about 10 years. I think 4 out of 120 months where I get to wear the beard is reasonable. I do intend to cut it, probably for Easter. Then I will likely go clean shaven for another 10 years.
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Here’s another hint after 24 years of marriage.

Keeping score is a major fail.
 
I agree with the poster who said keeping score is not a good technique in marriage.

That said, I also know that all relationships (marriage, parenting, professional, etc) require give and take. And you cannot just do all of one or the other lest you destroy the relationship.

So…if your wife’s discomfort is genuine, rooted in something you understand, and she is fairly adamant about it - then I’d have an honest discussion with her. Personally, I’d give her the gift of sacrificing it.

But…if its more of a power struggle, then I would urge you to gently and politely stick to your guns.

I spent the first 20 years of my marriage foolishly giving in WAY too much on too many things, and now that I’m course correcting, even little things are painful.

Food for thought.
 
edward_george said:
That’s between you and your wife.
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This. The Main Thing is to Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing. Talk, and figure out what attitudes, feelings, interpretations, and so on each of you is putting onto this decision. Then compare that to the major priorities you each have as a spouse. I think you’ll come to a compromise that serves your marriage, and the is the Main Thing.

If your wife likes the Screwtape Letters, however, consider pointing her at Letter #20:

“…In the meantime I would like to give you some hint about the type of woman—I mean the physical type—which he should be encouraged to fall in love with if “falling in love” is the best we can manage. In a rough and ready way, of course, this question is decided for us by spirits far deeper down in the Lowerarchy than you and I. It is the business of these great masters to produce in every age a general misdirection of what may be called sexual “taste”. This they do by working through the small circle of popular artists, dressmakers, actresses and advertisers who determine the fashionable type. The aim is to guide each sex away from those members of the other with whom spiritually helpful, happy, and fertile marriages are most likely. Thus we have now for many centuries triumphed over nature to the extent of making certain secondary characteristics of the male (such as the beard) disagreeable to nearly all the females—and there is more in that than you might suppose…”

What was C. S. Lewis getting at with that last line? She might ask herself that. Still, this is personal to your marriage. There isn’t some answer “out there”. The answer lies between you two. After all, Screwtape also had this to say, in Letter 19:

“You complain that my last letter does not make it clear whether I regard being in love as a desirable state for a human or not. But really, Wormwood, that is the sort of question one expects them to ask! Leave them to discuss whether “Love”, or patriotism, or celibacy, or candles on altars, or teetotalism, or education, are “good” or “bad”. Can’t you see there’s no answer? Nothing matters at all except the tendency of a given state of mind, in given circumstances, to move a particular patient at particular moment nearer to the Enemy or nearer to us.”
 
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